Of Honeybees and Carbon Emissions

LAST NOVEMBER, THE U’S STUDENT CHAPTER OF THE SOCIETY FOR INDUSTRIAL AND APPLIED MATHEMATICS (SIAM) HELD A MODELING COMPETITION FOR UNDERGRADUATES.

Teams chose one of three modeling problems that were based on real-world situations and worked together to analyze the problem, generate figures and results, and write a report about their findings.

The reward for the winning team was their registration fee, paid-in-full, for the COMAP Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM) in February 2024. The U’s SIAM student chapter hosted this competition to help participants prepare for the MCM and give them confidence in their abilities as scientific modelers.

Two teams participated in the contest, one with two members, Maxwell Archibald and Jack Perry, and another team with three members, Joshua Villarreal, Garrett Iverson and Dominic Cinaglia. Archibald and Perry studied the population dynamics of honeybees and won first place with their thorough and well-organized report while Villarreal, Iverson and Cinaglia looked at CO₂ levels and their correlation with climate change which won second place for their strong statistical analysis and informative report. The judges were so impressed with the quality of both teams’ submissions they decided to fund both for the MCM in February.

The U SIAM student chapter is extremely grateful for the financial support of the Department of Mathematics, without which the chapter would not have been able to fund these five deserving students.

Aaron L. Fogelson

In late March SIAM also announced the 2024 Class of SIAM Fellows. The group includes Aaron L. Fogelson, professor of mathematics, recognized for pioneering work on mathematical modeling and numerical methods for platelet aggregation and blood clotting. Through their various contributions, SIAM Fellows help advance the fields of applied mathematics, computational science, and data science. Read more about Fogelson’s recognition here.